


A Canary or a Phoenix? Neither are good at staying dead.

by Ohgodimdoingthisarenti



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Birds of Prey (Comic), Black Canary (Comics), DCU (Comics), Green Arrow (Comics)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 05:13:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11844654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ohgodimdoingthisarenti/pseuds/Ohgodimdoingthisarenti
Summary: Dinah Laurel Lance didn't die. Maybe she was dead to Earth One, to the love of her life, to her sister, her friends. She may have been dead to the world that didn't deserve her, but she sure as hell wasn't dead.





	A Canary or a Phoenix? Neither are good at staying dead.

Dinah Laurel Lance had felt many pains in her life. Whether it be the pain the losing her sister, the pain of losing her love, or a more literal pain, like the wounds of battle that she refused to sate with pills. However, there was no pain worse than the one that she felt on that hospital bed. She was pasted against the thin slab by her own, warm, ichor. The arrow was plunged deep into her, shooting a deep pang of electricity throughout her weary body with each minute movement. She tried to still herself, tensed tight, driving her chipped nails into the calloused skin of her palms.

She'd just said goodbye to the man she once loved. He didn't know it was goodbye, but she knew, and she knew well. Because, for all the pains she had felt in her life, this pain could only mean one thing. She wanted to fight it. God knew how hard that Dinah Laurel Lance had fought to be the kind of woman that wouldn't easily meet her end. But goddamn, she was tired. Her eyes fluttered, her lids heavy as sandbags and her cheeks tender yet tight with her own, biting tears. Slowly, the weight became more and more unbearable, and she allowed her long, spiry lashes to fall upon her cheekbones. Except, this time, they didn't open.

 For a while, there was darkness. It was an all encompassing, unrelenting darkness. The darkness was warm. She welcomed it, her arms open, leaning into the softness of it all. She deserved that peace, if only for a moment. So, she slept, her metaphorical body buckling into the abyss. Then, something interrupted that darkness.

Color erupted into her consciousness. They were not harsh colors. They were hazy, rich and tepid, like an autumn day. A familiar face came into view. It was a sharp, wide face, skin tanned, framed with blonde locks. He had a pointed goatee and kind blue eyes, and a smile carved deep within his weathered visage. He raised a rough palm to Dinah's face, his thumb tracing each curve of her countenance. She felt a tug at her lips. It had been a long, long while since she had felt something this genuine, this jovial.

She leaned into her chest, planting her face into his stiff frame. She listened to the beat of his heart, studying it as if it were the metronome of a long winded, symphonic masterpiece. Her fingers curled into the crisp fabric of his shirt, breathing in his floral scent. Oliver was never one for heavy, masculine aromas. 

"I love you, pretty bird," said her once lover. 

"I love you too, Ollie," she said without much thought.

"Then why did you leave me?" he asked her, his voice still pert. 

"I'd never leave you," she insisted, her fingers caressing the coarse skin of his neck. She didn't raise her head. She wanted to abscond to some place within him, wanted to live in deeper places that his body held. 

"But you did," he stated, his voice now somehow strained. Dinah craned her head upward, suddenly alert. She clambered backward as she met his eyes. They were covered with thick, milky film, two trails of thin crimson rolling off the corners of his lips, matting the hair of his beard. At once, Dinah noticed something silver jutting forth through Oliver's abdomen. Inch by inch the weapon was revealed, glinting amber against a sun low in dusk. 

Instinctively, her hands fell to the wound, cupping the carnage as it spooled from his gash. The gore spilled through the webbing of her fingers, rolling down her wrist before crescendoing against a quilt of leaves. More and more a blade revealed itself, tearing the tendons within him like rubber bands. Dinah pressed, hard enough that her palms quaked. 

"No, I can't lose you," she cried. "I love you. Please stay with me." 

"But you didn't stay with me," he said, even keeled. "You left. You couldn't hang on, and now I'm-" he sputtered, "I'm dying."

"You can't die, you can't leave me."

"You mean like you left me?" he replied, his voice still light, airy. She looked at his face, watched as he began to choke, his hands clambering to his throat, nails scraping down his windpipe, as if to unearth some new wind.

Dinah reached for him, her hands scrambling, first holding at his sharp chin, then moving toward his mouth, cupping at the still flowing blood, hoping some illogical hope that she could place the life back into him. She buckled as he fell against her, his viscera suckling at the fabric of her shirt. She pressed him into her bosom, her hands cradling the back of his head. She held him there for a moment, brushing the peak of his skull with the tip of her thumb. He stirred, violently at first, then slow, weak. Dinah felt the pumping of his heart grow faint, until only a murmur. Then, nothing.

For a moment, she sat there, until the only thing she could hear was a pulsing within her ears. Grief did not come at once, but rather like a toddler into a swimming pool. A toe, then ankle, knee and waist, the cold water prickling at her skin. Then, she was thrusted into it, kicking and screaming. But mostly screaming. Her eyes closed tight, tight enough that she felt a sharp pang at her temples. Tears came harder, like water from a spout, dribbling down her chin as it quavered. She screamed, her throat reverberating something painful. She screamed until the pain dulled, vocal chords like echoing like the chime of a grandfather clock. 

Then she was awake. And screaming still. The air around her thumped, ringlets of sound hurtling across the room, crashing against the ceiling, blasting the drop ceiling into a fine dust. Machines combusting, sparks blasting into the air like fireworks in white heat. Spackle collapsed onto her, dust adorning her hair like petals. She writhed backward, her head colliding into the metal frame of the hospital bed. Wires unfurled, attached precariously to the light fixtures above. The long bulbs within them shattered, pieces shining like crystal over the tiles. 

She grabbed at her throat, terrified of what it had just produced. She felt the air before her, thinking it may have somehow transformed. She couldn't believe it, couldn't let herself believe that the event was caused by herself. She opened her mouth, almost daring herself to test it once again. Instead, she looked at her surroundings. The room was grey. There was very little within it, a heart monitor, an empty metal tray, and, of course, herself and her musty hospital bed. The place looked dilapidated, and not just from the ruin that she created. Nearby, a window was open, the screen within it bent and hanging down against the frame. The glass was shattered, a large spiderweb of cracks spread from mount to mount. 

The doorway was wide open, door missing entirely. The tile was full of rifts and grit. She blinked, hard, again and again, hoping some other reality would greet her. But she was still in the same, strange world. It was unfamiliar. In fact, she was sure, this room was entirely different than the one that she had nodded off in, at the hour of 11.:59. It must've been 30 minutes before she convinced herself to get to her feet. They were numb, sending her to the floor almost instantly. She placed her palms flat against the floor, dust clinging to the sweat that soaked them. The blood crept back into her legs slowly, and she waited, panting, rubbing the heat back into herself. 

Her muscles quivered as she rose. She found herself spectacularly sore, in spite of being asleep for God knows how long. The sound of her feet pattering against cool tile echoed throughout the room, slow, unsteady, until she was limping from the pain. Instinctively, she found herself pacing toward the window. A piece of tattered fabric flapped in the mild wind. The sound almost drove her crazy. 

As she neared it, she tore the cloth from its perch, allowing it be wisped away. It traced the top of tall buildings, buildings unknown to her. The skyline was as rocky as a jagged mountain. There were lights, brilliant lights, a map of lights spread out as far as she could see. She scanned the city for a trace of something that she might know, perhaps a familiar company, or the Queen name that she had become accustomed to throughout her years, looking out of her window and to her lovers name, her hands oftentimes falling to her heart, knowing, or hoping, that one day that it would become her own. That was when she was younger, when she may have allowed herself to forsake the name Lance. She would never let that name leave her know, would hold fast and tight to it ruthlessly. She was the Black Damn Canary, and apologetically and completely herself. Dinah Laurel Lance.

She looked beyond the grid of lights, to something blinking in the distance. It was something ovular, a projection perhaps. It was a dull yellow, worn. Within it was a symbol, blurry to her tired eyes. It sharpened, however slow, into a remedial, winged character. A bat, perhaps. It stood behind a building, tall and glass fronted, lit up, even as the night was old. Wayne Enterprises, it said. Dinah's eyes narrowed, watching as something, a streak of bright purple, popped into her peripherals. She leaned forward, fingers curling over the cool steel sill. She couldn't make much of it, just purple and red, a red like embers, flowing like one smooth brush stroke in the wind. 

She squinted harder. Certain things came to focus. Glossy leather, bright yellow boots laced up a pair of pronounced calves. It was a woman, swinging on a wire so thin it hardly registered to her. She was smiling, her mouth wide, with lips red, glassy as enamel. The woman swung closer, and Dinah stared, baffled, filled with wonder and something she didn't quite understand. That was, until a black sole came crashing upon her face. Then, a stinging at her cheek. She stumbled, her butt colliding hard with the floor. Before she knew it, the woman was hovering over her, a gloved hand over her cocked hip, smirk growing ever wider.

 "What the hell are you supposed to be?" Dinah sputtered, clutching her cheek. 

"You must be knew here," the woman said, her voice low, sultry. "I'm the one they call 'Batgirl'."

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Might expand a bit more if anyone in this entire world actually ends up reading this. Or cares. Which they probably won't but here it be.


End file.
